Sermon Tone Analysis

Hope that Does Not Disappoint

Romans 5:1-1

Romans 5:

An interest

Proverbs

What do you set your hope upon?

This is a most crucial question for you and me both to answer.

Some things hold great promise but prove to be passing fancies as life goes on.

Other things are even dangerous and destructive.

In this old world, hopes are often delayed and many times never really realized.

Do you see why our question is most crucial?

What do you set your hope upon?

An interesting admission is made by Christ’s disciples in that I think gives us an understanding of what they were thinking about the crucifixion of Christ.

It’s found in .

Read this with me:

What they had put their hope in was an understanding of Jesus Christ being a conquering king who would deliver them from the Roman rule.

Many of our problems come from attaching our hopes to things that were not made to bear them.

What do you hope in?

This is where God comes in.

Turn to with me.

Read Romans 5:1-11.

As the One who made us, God knows how we work best and what is best for us.

He knows what we should hope for and the neat thing about it is He has set the very things we should hope for in the Bible so that we can fix our hopes upon them.

This is the Message of the New Testament — Hope that does not disappoint.

Let’s look at the New Testament in overview and see how hope in God — never disappoints.

We will do this overview by looking first at : Hope Revealed and then at Hope Lived.

I want to

I. Hope Revealed

The Gospels reveal God’s Hope is in Jesus Christ Alone

The collection of 27 books that comprise the New Testament begins with 4 accounts of the life of the Messiah — Jesus of Nazareth.

These are documentaries, if you will, of the life, words, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Matthew was written for a Jewish community and stressed Jesus’ fulfillment of OT prophecies, as the opening genealogy demonstrates.

He is the Son of David.

Mark chronicles, probably from Peter’s recollections, in a very fast action style presenting Jesus as the Suffering Servant, emphasizing service and sacrifice.

Luke, whose author is a meticulous historian, sometimes called the Gospel to the Gentiles, stresses that the Messiah has come not just for the Jews, but for all the nations of the world and he stresses OT prophesies that make this promise.

Luke 24:

The 4th gospel account, John, emphasizes an overall message that Jesus is clearly identified as the Messiah and that this Messiah is God Himself.

Now let’s direct our attention back to .

“Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith...”

The Greek construction and English translation underscores the fact that justification is not an ongoing process, but a one-time Divine declaration with eternal results.

And it’s not subjective!

You remember the statement by the disciples?

“We were hoping that He was the One who was about to redeem Israel.”

But the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ is not subjective and internal “religious feeling” within the devout believer, but external, objective reality.

It is completely outside of the any man.

Look at the words in verse 1.

“We have peace...”

The verb translated we have is in the present tense, indicating that this is something that is already possessed.

There are many blessings the believer awaits for in his resurrection and glorification from these earthly bodies — but Peace with God — is established through our Lord Jesus Christ — and this peace came to us — the moment we believed — “by Faith!”

And this peace is only obtained because we have “access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand...”

Being that this peace is all by grace, it is therefore all of God and only through Jesus Christ.

So, the person who is justified by faith in Christ is at peace with God, regardless of how he may feel about it at any given moment.

This is a hope that does not disappoint!

You may be asking, “Why do we need peace with God?”

Many unsaved people do not think of themselves as enemies of God.

They consider themselves, at worst, to be “neutral” about God.

They are not, in their minds, actively opposing God or contradict His Word.

They’re just neutral.

But this is an impossible position.

Their peace is only with things of the flesh, and they are thereby “Hostile toward God.”

And not only are all unbelievers enemies of God — But God is the enemy of all unbelievers — to the degree that He is angry with them every day...

and condemns them to eternal hell.

God is enemy of the sinner, and that enmity will not end, cannot end, unless there is faith in Jesus Christ.

And worse of all — every person who is at enmity with God is a child of the devil — not God.

And this is the reason Jesus came;

We are condemned without Jesus Christ!

And there is no Hope outside of Christ.

But because of Jesus Christ — we now have a Hope!

Paul continues —

The most immediate consequence of justification is reconciliation.

Reconciliation with God bring peace with God - a permanent and irrevocable peace because of Jesus Christ.

And this is because of Who Jesus is and What He has done.

This is what the Gospels declare.

Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God and He came to make the way of peace to God the Father.

He did this by becoming sin for us.

And so, no matter what afflictions we may endure — afflictions don’t destroy us, but produce endurance, and endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.

And this is the hope — that does not disappoint!

Why?

Because there is redemption in Jesus Christ alone.

Reconciliation speaks of relationship.

The biblical word for relationship is Covenant.

Jesus spoke of His covenant with them:

Covenants are used to form new relationships, which is why Jesus came: to make a new relationship for His people with God, because their relationship was destroyed by their sin.

And that takes us to Hope Lived.

II.

Hope Lived

The Rest of the New Testament Reveals how that Hope is lived out in Christian life.

A hope that does not disappoint translates into a life that is lived with Christ at the center.

The book of Acts showed how this Hope Lived began in the lives of the Disciples as they lived in Christ.

III.

His Creation

Acts 24

The book of Romans, as we have already seen, demonstrates lives lived in the reality of the Hope found in Christ.

Romans 5:2

Romans 5:2

“and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

And in this epistle, Paul lays out the clearest expressions in a careful, logical, ordered outline of the Gospel message.

1 Corinthians defends the gospel against corruptions from within under the guise of human wisdom.

2 Corinthians answers the attacks of false teachers against the Gospel.

Galatians argues against the false teaching of the Gospel plus something else, grace plus works, Christ plus something or someone else.